Archaeology Notes

Event ID 656406

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/656406

ND48NW 2 4337 8885

(ND 4337 8885) Weems Castle (NR) (Site of)

OS 6" map (1900)

The remains of a probable broch extend over an area 60' - 70' in diameter on the Castle Taing, a small headland. On the landward side the headland has been defended by two concentric walls or ramparts over 12' wide, and in places, 5' high. A modern cart-track passes through them from the NE, and this may have been the original line of approach. The remains are almost completely overgrown so that no arrangement can be traced.

G Low 1879; RCAHMS 1946, visited 1929.

"Weems Castle", undoubtedly the remains of a broch with outworks generally as described by the RCAHMS. The broch survives as a turf-coveered mutilated mound of debris c.20.0m in diameter and 1.2m high, with no trace of its foundation visible, nor of the lime mortared structure mentioned and planned by the RCAHMS. A grooved stone, 8" x 3 1/2" (possibly a net-sinker) found embedded in the outworks, is retained by Arch Div Edinburgh.

Surveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (ISS), 3 May 1973.

ND 433 888 Weems Castle: broch with associated defences, prehistoric.

Sponsors: Historic Scotland, Orkney Archaeological Trust.

G Wilson and H Moore 1997.

'The Orcadian' in 1903 mentions alternative names for the castle - Lady Wemyss' Castle and St lowrie's Castle. It also states the tradition of a subterranean passage, known as a 'weem'.

M Howe 2006.